The Best Role Playing Games

A Short List of the Most Fun and Popular Table Top RPGs

Dec 25, 2008

Since D&D was first published in 1974, the number of role playing games has exploded. Here is a short listing of some of the best RPGs available today.

Table top role playing games have been around for over 30 years, and keeping track of all the RPGs available is nearly impossible even for a professionally obsessive gamer. Still, some games simply stand out.

The List of Top Role Playing Games

The original role playing game, D&D is a fantasy system inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth. Dungeons and Dragons does not have a specific world it is based in, it focuses on giving information on building characters and general mechanics, and leaves the world building to the GM. This type of game is a pure system, explaining how to play, but leaving what to play entirely up to the play group.

D&D originated the d20 system, and has a reputation among some gamers as being to easily turned into hack and bash (RPG equivalent of a video game shoot 'em up)

Published by White Wolf, and recently taken back to the drawing board for a complete rewrite, World of Darkness is an urban fantasy role playing game, set in a supernatural version of the modern world. The core World of Darkness game has a number of supplements focusing on specific kinds of supernatural creature including: Vampire: the Requiem, Mage: the Awakening, Werewolf: the Forsaken, and Changeling. The World of Darkness uses White Wolf's propriety Storytelling System, a strongly character driven game system that runs light on mechanics.

Short for Big Eyes, Small Mouth, BESM is an effects based rpg that is based on Japanese animation. Designed to be infinitely flexible and adaptable to any genre, BESM canon includes a multi-dimensional, multi-genre universe in which anything can happen.

The Generic Universal Role Playing System has been around for over 2 decades. It is a pure system, similar to Dungeons and Dragons, with little or no world building. Unlike Dungeons and Dragons, the GURP system is built to be, well, universal. Rules cover everything from magic system, to modern jets, and martial arts.

While not the most well known of role playing games, Paranoia makes the list on sheer, insane fun. Cross Monty Python with 1984, and set it all in an underground, self-enclosed world run by a super computer. Now add secret societies, and a Three Stooges take on the purpose of mayhem. Oh, and characters get medically resurrected each time they die.

The Star Wars Role Playing Game is one of a huge number of systems that have bought the right to use D&D's d20 system, and built their own world around it. Star Wars would rates this list on sheer popularity only, thankfully it doesn't need to. Thanks to good writing, well thought out mechanics and a design team that stayed true to the Star Wars universe, Star Wars RPG definitely stands out.

Alright, take Dungeons and Dragons, set it in a future universe with space ships, colony worlds, and galactic wars. Replace the races with species. Give it enough supplemental information and world building to make avoiding random hack and bash games easier then D&D ever managed. Now meet Traveller.

One of the first science fiction RPGs, Traveller has gone through several revisions, and is definitely worth the price of admission.

The copyright of the article The Best Role Playing Games in Games is owned by Jessica Burde. Permission to republish The Best Role Playing Games in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.